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Tag Archives: herbs

This is a favourite recipe of mine. Frittata is an easy stand-by supper, which tarragon adds a robusy, almost meaty flavour to.

Most of this meal was prepared using stuff grown in our garden.

It’s easy enough to cook. The default recipe involves lightly frying some chopped onion, then adding half a kilo of cubed potato and frying for 10-15 minutes longer, then finally add a chopped courgette and fry for a few minutes more. On this occasion I substituted some spinach, of which we currently have a glut, for the courgette. I wilted it in the pan and then chopped. I reckon this would work ok with lots of different green veggies – kale, cabbage, chard, peas even.

Add eggy goodness.

Once the veg is done, add half a dozen eggs that have been beaten together with chopped tarragon. A good amount of chopped tarragon is needed, say a couple of tablespoons.

Top with cheese and bake in the oven for 30 mins at 180 C.

Feeling hungry now.

The result is delicious, filling, healthy and easy to transport for picknicking. Indeed, this is exactly what we did with it – an afternoon walk in a local wood munching on frittata (and Becky’s home-made chocolate cake) was a very pleasant way to pass the time. T Rex was particularly impressed and got quite upset when there wasn’t any left!

Over the last few weeks I’ve fulfilled my ambition to replicate the herb garden I had when we lived Darn Sarf. Back in the South I had a large herb bed which I built over the course of several years in our front garden, and which was a regular feature of our cooking while we lived there. Replacing it here in the North has been a priority of mine since we moved in over 9 months ago, but somehow has always seemed too difficult to get done.

I made the first steps when we had a water and electricity supply run down to the bottom of our garden (to make certain orchard-related tasks a lot easier). We had a digger in to dig the trench, and while it was here I had them skim off a layer of turf from two soon-to-be-herb beds just in front of our patio. They then dumped the skimmed turf on top of a flower bed, but that’s another story. What we were left with was two beds maybe 3m x 1.5m each.

Our neighbours own a field with some horses in and have very kindly given us access to a large pile of well-rotted horse manure, for free. I therefore spent a couple of afternoons filling wheelbarrows with manure and wheeling it down to the soon-to-be-herb beds, and dumped it onto them. Each bed got 8 wheelbarrow loads of manure, which we raked over until it formed a more or less smooth layer maybe 4-6 inches deep.

Lots of lovely herbs.

My mum bought me a box of herb seedlings for my birthday, which I supplemented with some purchases of my own, and some plants that had miraculously survived being taken from the South in pots and then left more-or-less untended for 9 months. I’ve now planted all of these, which has filled one bed completely and the other maybe half-full. We’ll then fill the remaining space with herbs we haven’t yet been able to find because they aren’t yet in season, and herbs we intend to grow from seed.

What we have now:

Two kinds of rosemary (blue and white-flowering)

Two kinds of thyme (common thyme and creeping thyme, the latter of which will fill out the spaces between the other plants)

Two kinds of sorrel (common and red-veined, aka “bloody dock”)

Two kinds of sage (broad-leaved and purple)

Two kinds of fennel (common and bronze)

Lavender

Oregano

Marjoram

English mace

Curry plant

Hyssop

Plus some mint in a pot (kept separate as it will take over if put in the main bed)

And some vietnamese basil in a pot (won’t survive outdoors in England, too cold!)

Starting from the back and moving clockwise: rosemary, creeping thyme, english mace, oregano, fennel, sorrel.

Still to grow and/or acquire from elsewhere:

Bay

French tarragon

Chives

Lovage

Parsley

More creeping thyme

Coriander, probably in pots

I love cooking with herbs and it has really stuck in my craw having to pay for supermarket herbs over the last year. I am really looking forward to being able to just pop out and pick whatever I need like we used to.